France calls for American 'reason'

Telegraph (UK) ^ | 09/14/2001 | Harry de Quetteville and Toby Helm

[dighton]

POLITICAL leaders in France and Germany urged President Bush yesterday to avoid a belligerent response, as fears grew in Europe of the consequences of swift and ruthless military reaction to the terrorist attacks.

Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, said the Americans should be "reasonable" in their response. Alain Richard, his defence minister, said the attacks were "not acts of war".

The comments, echoed by senior German ministers if not by the Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, contradicted statements by President Bush and his Secretary of State Colin Powell.

M Jospin said: "We must vigorously condemn and combat terrorism. But we must not allow ourselves to be led into considerations of a conflict between the western world and the Islamic world, where we have many friends and partners."

The remarks from the Socialist prime minister were aimed at reassuring both the France's political Left and its Muslim population, which numbers six million. But they will be seen as further evidence of disagreements between France and America on big foreign policy issues.

The comments by M Richard will also undermine American confidence in France's commitment to joint reprisals as outlined by Nato members on Wednesday. He said: "I think that this was a terrorist attack of particular gravity.

"American democracy is clearly endangered by such action, but in my opinion a war is something else entirely." France disagrees with US policy on missile defence, the bombing of Iraq and what it sees as American cultural imperialism.

Rudolf Scharping, the German defence minister, also cautioned against launching swift military strikes. "I hope we all remain calm and do not now speak of a state of alarm. We do not face a war.

"We face the question of what is an appropriate response," he told German television. "Not in the sense of revenge and retribution, but in order to be able to fight and break international terror."

France's maverick health minister, Bernard Kouchner, went as far yesterday as to put the attacks down to a "series of errors" by America. "America's made a real mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was to train the Taliban," M Kouchner said.

"To think now that there is some kind of consensus of 'honourable' nations against the 'bad' terrorists, is simply not true."

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.</font color>

[DainBramage]

"As the Giant erects itself from the dust, the world cries out,

"Damn it man, what have you done!?", as it scurries to hide its own excrement.

[Mr. Lucky]

The German guy may have a point. If this really were a war, the French would have surrendered, changed sides and surrendered again.

[correctthought]

I'm just so "glad" NATO is right there beside us. /sarcasm>

Any help will come from the Brits and probably the Eastern Europeans.

[rboatman]

Driving the country roads here in the heartland has shown me one thing: Frogs who get in the way get squashed.

boatman

[Eugene Tackleberry]

Dude, what is your agenda? It seems like you post stuff just to irk people. Are you suggesting food supplies in American cities in an all out war would be worse than they were in Leningrad during the German siege in WWII? Personally, I would kill myself before I would eat another human being. Perhaps you have no qualms about cannibalism which is why you are so afraid of it.

[LibKill]

Sacré Dieu, comment je déteste les crapauds français.

(Dear God, how I hate the french toads.)

[Howlin]

I guess France and Germany heard Bush's remarks yesterday about harboring terrorists, huh?

[Psycho_Bunny]

Do you enjoy being a jackass or are you just an Unwilling Talent at it?

[BenF]

Our ally will be Israel but she won't last long after the chaos starts.

Wishful thinking on your part, Bertie....But, as usual, your rantings are unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.

[Brewster]

With the French as allies, you don't need enemies. The bastards denied us overflight capability during our strikes on Libya, which resulted in the loss of one F-111 and its crew.

It will be interesting to see what the cowardly frogs pull this time.

[Gadsden1st]

The CHEESE!!

[Capitalist Eric]

POLITICAL leaders in France and Germany urged President Bush yesterday to avoid a belligerent response...

Belligerent response?

Like PISS OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was that belligerent enough?

As a pundit pointed out, this morning, "France has always been there, when they need us..."

Some things, never change.

[A+Bert (Outta here)]

You'll have to fricasee this tough ole bird. After you disarm him. I shake a little especially after the dt's but I got myself a shotgun to compensate. It is a single shot cause I don't miss.

[Fury]

Alain Richard, his defence minister, said the attacks were "not acts of war". I would consider this highly provacative. There are 5000+ people dead, about 60 hours have passed since the attack and key leaders in the French and German government are downplaying the incident. Important military and economic keystones of the US were damaged and destroyed and yet, they are downplaying the matter. I applaud GW's words on building coalitions, but there will come a point when we will need to decide if we act with purpose, and regardless of what the cheesemonkeys say. Sorry, but had to vent...

[cgbg]

The French are such obnoxious asses. We will decide when a terrorist act on our soil constitutes an act of war--and we have decided. We will decide what is appropriate military action--without consulting or informing these "allies".

Their idea of political philosophy is Foucault--what more needs to be said. ;-)

P.S. But I really do think Jacques Vallee is a cool guy. ;-)

[jdege]

I don't know, they are right, in part.

The goal isn't to just hurt a lot of people. We've done that before and it's never done a hell of a lot of good.

The goal is to end the threat of international terrorism. That's going to take more than just bombing aspirin factories.

[BenF]

Let's not get down on the French, people. After all, I have a case of French rifles to sell. They're like new, they've only been dropped twice.

[BurkeanCyclist]

I think Bush needs to have a couple of foreign ambassadors in for a little talk.

[libordeath]

"Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, said the Americans should be "reasonable" in their response. Alain Richard, his defence minister, said the attacks were "not acts of war"."

If not acts of war, what were they pray tell?